DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 529
supposing a man gets divorce against his wife, what will happen to the woman ? Where would she go ? After being divorced, she would be without a husband, and without moral and physical means of livelihood ? Who would befriend that woman ? The sponsors of the Bill ? I do not think they will come forward. Would she go to her brother ? No. Has she not antagonised the brother by taking a share of the family property for the benefit of the husband who has discarded her? The result will be that her father’s relations will be entirely apathetic to her sorrows. Then how will she maintain herself?
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : She will marry Naziruddin Ahmad.
Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad : I do not think, Sir, that any divorced woman, with any sense of taste in her, would select me. I think the honourable Minister would be a better selection.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : God forbid that any such thing should happen. Let us not make personal references.
Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad : It was not meant to be heard seriously by the Chair.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : But I am serious. The honourable Member invited that remark by the Honourable Minister when he asked : ‘Where is that woman to go’ ?
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : As he was expressing so much commiseration, I suggested that for the benefit of his own mind.
Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad : I did not resent it. I fully enjoyed the joke. But jokes apart, I ask seriously and again, where she is to go ? Take the case of a divorced European woman. She has resources. She is educated. She can get a job. She can be a shorthand-typist. She can get a job in one of our Embassies and can get a free lift in a plane and a pay as well as allowances. Such women are absolutely free. They can make friends with strangers. They are trained and accustomed to rely on themselves.
So a civilised European woman can stand on her own legs and her position is different from that of our women, not the advanced fashionable ones but poor unfriended woman discarded by the husband and fathers’ relations. It is not easy, as the Law Minister jocosely said, for a divorced woman to get a husband; even if she is willing a suitable husband is not to be readily available. So her position would be extremely difficult and such women would be the worst victims of the